Fearful Californians Prepare For A Nuclear Attack: "A Lot Of People Will Be Killed"

With each passing day and each new ICBM launch from a seemingly unhinged North Korean dictator, the fears of an attack on the U.S. mainland, though faint, increasingly weigh on the hearts and minds of Americans, particularly those in California. As The Guardian points out today, those fears have even prompted a group of California public health officials and emergency responders to gather for a strategy session with Hal Kempfer, a retired marine lieutenant colonel, to discuss which areas are the most likely targets and how citizens should respond to an attack.

Hal Kempfer, a noted international security expert, is getting a roomful of California public health officials and emergency responders to think about the unthinkable – a nuclear bomb exploding at the port of Long Beach, about four miles away.

“A lot of people will be killed,” he said, “but a large percentage of the population will survive. They will be at risk and they will need help.”

“If you want to mess up southern California, if you want to mess up the west coast, if you want to mess up our country – where do you attack?” Kempfer asks. “If I’m sitting in North Korea and looking at possible targets, I’m going to be looking at Long Beach very closely.”

He talks about the port and downtown Long Beach being “toast” – no exaggeration, since the blast wave is likely to vaporize everything in its immediate path. But the city health department, the Long Beach airport and fire department might not be; they are all somewhat protected by a hilly area that is likely to halt the initial blast wave. And so the city can, tentatively, think about setting up a center of emergency operations.

Of course, the radioactive fallout created as the explosion gathers up tremendous quantities of dust and ocean water and spits them into the atmosphere would represent a secondary grave risk, especially in the first hours after an attack.

Not to mention the electromagnetic pulse that is likely to knock out electronic systems including phones and computers, the pile-ups expected on the freeways as drivers are blinded by the flash of the explosion, the rush for food, water and gasoline as millions of Angelenos attempt to drive out of the region, and the terror triggered by even the idea of a second, follow-up attack.

Meanwhile, lest you think this was all just a creative way for some public employees to skip work for a day, Ventura County, located just northwest of Los Angeles, has even taken the unusual step of prepping a 250-page plan on how to respond to the humanitarian crisis that would result from a nuclear attack in Los Angeles.

In fact, their efforts even include this truly bizarre public service announcement that instructs folks to shelter in place and cover windows with plastic.

Of course, as we pointed out back in August, while a global nuclear confrontation is generally viewed as a bad thing, for Ron Hubbard, President of Atlas Survival Shelters in Los Angeles, it has resulted in an economic windfall as a staggering number of Californians have suddenly turned into doomsday preppers.

“It’s crazy, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ron Hubbard, president of Atlas Survival Shelters, told Fox11. “It’s all over the country. I sold shelters today in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, California.”

The company, based in Montebello in eastern Los Angeles, sells shelters priced from $10,000 to $100,000. Hubbard told the station that the shelters are designed to be buried 20 feet below ground and can sustain survivors for up to one year, depending on the size and model.

He told the station he had sold more than 30 units in recent days, including to customers in Japan.

All that said, Kempfer points out that there is a silver lining here because any attack from North Korea likely wouldn't result in "your traditional nuclear apocalypse scenario" because Kim Jong-Un probably only has weapons capable of destroying about 1 square mile at a time.

Rather, it’s likely to be a Hiroshima-sized bomb – large enough to obliterate everything within a square-mile radius and kill tens of thousands of people, either immediately or through the lingering effects of radiation. But still leaving millions of survivors across the region who would need help.

“We’re talking about smaller North Korean things,” Kempfer emphasized, though the word “smaller” sounds very far from reassuring. “This is not your traditional nuclear apocalypse scenario.”

I live in Socal too, yet I don't care if I get blown to smithereens. I go to church three times a week and ask God to forgive me of my sins. We are all going to die at some point. Now or later. I've been blessed because I believe there is a God out there so I live a life that would gain me entry into Heaven.

I don't see why Kim would bother. All he has to do is sit back and watch as the third world invasion slowly destroys us from within. California will die a slow and painful death, and all you have to do to watch is have an internet connection and an ironic disposition. If I was kim, Id find that a lot more entertaining. Unless he has a teleporter than brings africans into the US instantaneously, Im really not that worried about it.

Word to the wise. Seaweed comes mostly from the shores of Japan and Korea. Seaweed probably also accumulates radioactive iodine. Good time to give up on sushi.As to the norks, the wildest estimate of their nuke capacity is 150kT even hitting San Francisco squarely, that is only 230,000 deaths. In LA it is about 115,000.

Meh. Not sure why everyone is worried about iodine contamination. The biggest iodine isotope contaminant would be I-131 with a half life of 8 days. Other isotopes would either not be formed or are sufficiently short enough in half life to be irrelevant. Every 80 days, the level goes down by more than a factor of 1000. Another 80 days and you're at less than a millionth. What is the result of iodine contamination? You'd have to have a heck of a lot of it to lose your thyroid function. It's debatable how much you would need to induce a thyroid cancer 20 years later.I'll be saving my SSKI to help purify my drinking water instead.Doom porn. You gotta love it.

we don't care about slow radiation, it is not killing, it is making them mutant for later generation.we need instant classic good ol nuke that wipe population, whole californiga must be wiped.them alone are proving against science that faggz self multiplicate just like a virus without physically reproducing.

fear for breakfast, lunch and diner. eat up and go get in a fetal position(preferably under an ivy league desk). the boggieman is a construct of the swamp to manipulate the masses. works every single tyme.world in fear is an easily controlled world, famous quote from new game(same as the old game). lol.simple shit maynard, SSM.

people believe whatever they want...doesn't make it true. look around, they all think they got "heaven" on lock down. Im so sure! Honestly,in Truth and Humility...i don't know. you didn't start with a convenient lie did you?

It's quite tiresome indeed. Some doom scenarios are quite real, but a nuclear attack of NK on the US is definitely not among them. They're firing mid-range missiles without any pay-load, so they reach further so as to look like semi-intercontinental. Even then, they don't get much further than Alaska. As soon as they arm it with a serious warhead (weighing at least a 1000 lb, it wouldn't even make it accross the Bering Strait.Meanwhile, the arms industry fares excellent with those whipped up tensions: it's the perfect excuse to install THAAD anti-missile systems in SK and Japan ($$$), with a plethora of aditional arms sales in its wake ($$$), even bomb shelters in CA are selling like hot dogs ($$$). No wonder the US doesn't want to SIT DOWN AND TALK with NK: that would be dissasterous for business!But NK has no and will never have any intentions to conquer any other country. It's just preposterous to even consider it as a remote possibillity: SK (being NK's smallest neighboring country) has a population twice the size of NK, an economy 20-30 times the size of NK and a military X times bigger (and backed up by the US). How could NK ever even dream of the ambition to conquer SK (let alone other countries overseas)???The NK government is not stupid, nor suicidal. Actually, it acts quite rationally. After it has seen what happens to other governments that dare cross the US' orders and define their own soverein policies (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen and scores of countries in decades past), NK has decided that the only way to defend themselves against US-orchestrated "color revolutions" and "regime-change" operations, is to aquire nuclear weapons. Instead of being a madman, Kim Jong Un has played his game of chess brilliantly: it averted being checkmated by the US and the US can now jump and scream as much as they want, but there's nothing they can do about it anymore.Unless the US goes on a suicidal rampage, the NK issue will vanish soon, just like we don't hear much anymore about Syria or the Ukraine these days. US hegemony is coming to an end and a multi-polar world is emerging. So much the better for the entire world; one single school yard bulley is not a healthy situation for anyone in the school yard, not even for the bulley himself.

A NK nuclear attack against the US definitely seems very remote, at least for now. But an attack against SK? They could completely obliterate them and there wouldn't be much the SK's or Americans there could do about it. The NK's would simply target the SK's nuclear power plants using conventional weapons and unleash a nuclear fallout hell for not only themselves but Japan and the west coast of the US. Like you though, I don't think they are suicidal enough to do this.

Fearful Californians Prepare For A Nuclear Attack: "A Lot Of People Will Be Killed"My response: There is a GREATER CHANCE of an earthquake or a tsunami that a nuclear attack. SATAN has the people in CA so absolutely deceived and fearful, it boogles the mind. It is so absolutely obvious for anyone with eyes to see and ears to understand.This is what happens in a society that rhrows GOD out of the public square. CA is a PAGAN society in need of some faith.Truly sad.

logical answer: god is a construct to control the masses. it dovetails fear. god fearing mericans made this country great. false, hard working people made this country great and hung theives from low hanging branches. what fuked this country is lack of rule of law. god had nothing to do with the reality of what happened. although it was masked as a god controlling thingy it was the peoples desire to do the "right things". see the 7 natural laws and get a clue.

Praetorian Guard ... Thank you for sharing and for your honesty.I want to answer your question from a Biblical perspective and I will keep it short.Yes indeed, the Bible does give us an indication that GOD will intervene in the affairs of man which would include WAR. Below is the verse in the Bible that confirms GOD's prophetic plan to intervene.Matthew 24:22 (NKJV)22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.The more important issue for Americans, especially those in CA, is to pay attention to what is going on in the Middleast. The Middleast is where all the action will take place in the future. Specifically, pay close attention to what is happening with RUSSIA, TURKEY, IRAN, SYRIA and ISRAEL. In the PROPHETIC BOOKS of the BIBLE (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Book of Revelation), GOD has laid out His PROPHETIC PLAN for men and nations. While all the books above are important, Ezekiel 38-39, many places in Isaiah and Jeremiah lay out events now occuring in the Middleast. Anyone who has read the Bible is finding what is going on today in the Middleast to be exciting because GOD's PROPHETIC PLAN is being fulfilled every single day. You may want to begin to explore it for yourself. Type in the phrase "GOG and MAGOG" into the internet and begin your journey or consult a trusted source. One caution: Seek the Holy Spirit for guidance and be discerning in what you read.Finally, let me end with this one note regarding FEAR.GOD of the BIBLE never intended man to live in a spirit of FEAR, but to live in a spirit of FAITH (HEB11:1). Job28:23-28 sums up GOD's perspective pretty well.Job 28:23-2823-28 “God alone knows the way to Wisdom, he knows the exact place to find it.He knows where everything is on earth, he sees everything under heaven.After he commanded the winds to blow and measured out the waters,Arranged for the rain and set off explosions of thunder and lightning,He focused on Wisdom, made sure it was all set and tested and ready.Then he addressed the human race: ‘Here it is! Fear-of-the-Lord—that’s Wisdom, and Insight means shunning evil.’”

True. Most Cali people I know wonder how often they can get their Botox shot at the one end of the income spectrum, and the others worry about how to pay the rent/mortgage. Then there's those who worry about getting beat to death on the BART as they struggle to go to work.

Yep. I'm in Northern CA boonies, and the only worries I've heard is about wildfires - we got 'em north and south of us, but have been pretty much spared, but it is finally dry after a wetter than normal winter, and there is often lots of smoke with northwest winds to keep reminding us. And crazy Gus got one thing right - earthquakes are a greater danger than the norks and little kim. I suspect, if you took a very local (50-80 mile radius) survey of the local small 'twin-citites' market area, the way biggest worry would be the plummeting price of dope per pound to sub $1 grand - thanks to the green rush and resultant big increase in supply. Welcome to Econ 101 folks.But th ZH doom porn headlines and hysterical level 'reporting' IS getting old...

True that. My neighbors are all middle class farmers who have sunk a lot of time and money into their businesses. The stress is palpable. Not that it's registering here, but If the Bay Area and So Cal were nuked it would absolutely crater the pot market.